Thanks for the picture ayoy!

Remember our  ”I want TechHub” video? We made it to explain why we think TechHub is a great idea. What’s TechHub? It’s a London-based mini-cluster for technology start-up community. Competition was tough but we recently learned that that we’re among the six lucky winners! We were given a free TechHub London membership for a year! Hurray! Who else is going to be there? Drop us a line / email and let’s start co-working!

You can read more on TechHub and watch the other winning videos here. TechCrunch article on TechHub here.

Ladies and Gents, that’s how the Applicake LipDub was made! Enjoy!

If you’re interested, you can find the code for the presentation here and some more resources here.

The birth of an idea

I came up with the idea for the presentation when we were working on a Todo app at Applicake, however I wanted to sync it with the Things GTD app. I ended up writing a ruby gem which solved my problem. You can find it at my github account. After doing that I heard that there was a call for speakers for Euruko and thought that this might be good material for a talk.

I sent my proposal for a 20-minute talk and was very excited when I received and email saying I was accepted. Of course my excitement lasted around 4 seconds when I realized I will be speaking in front of a whole auditorium. I’m used to giving talks to Applicakers during Railstalks, but this was waaay bigger. So, I did what most people do in a situation like this – I panicked.

Well, to be precise, I took my time. I started panicking around 1 month before the conference. I prepared a first draft of the speech and delivered it to Applicakers. I can’t thank then enough for bashing that first draft with criticism. It was bad, I can safely say that now. But it took me back to the drawing board and I started improving what I had, so when I delivered it again to Applicakers, they liked it much more.

5 minutes to midnight

When I was done, Euruko was set to start. I was to speak right after the lunch break – I loved the time slot because I could set myself up earlier and try the presentation. That was the best idea ever – 30 minutes before the talk I tested it out on the projectors and it turned out that code examples are unreadable! With support of the few people in the room I managed to fix that right before the start time.

I was a bit shook up by the last second changes, but there was no time to think about it – it was time to start! So there I was, in front of almost 300 people looking at me. Absolutely terrifying moment. However, once I started talking, the nervousness faded. There was one moment when I tried to throw in a joke and nobody laughed, but I managed to recover by keeping my cool and moving on.

After it was over and I answered some questions (I’d like to thank for some great suggestions that came from the audience), I sat down and only then I started to relax. An awesome party the same night also helped

After thoughts

It was my first time speaking at a conference and I’m still reflecting on the experience. I have to say it was stressful and I’m still finding out what I could have done better but it was very rewarding. I highly recommend anyone taking up such challenge – you’ll love it. And once you do it, you’ll want to do it again. I know I do.

Applicake, a team of growing rock stars (not only in tech!) finally released their first music video.

So what it is? It’s a fantastic, well-performed LipDub (feel free to use the exact quote, dear Press). Applicake and PipeJump team supported by @josevalim and Socha (guest performance) wanted to give something back to the awesome Ruby community. They chose the song “Ruby” by Kaiser Chiefs to tell a both touching and romantic story of a Ruby lover. The Rubyist is trying various things and activities but they can’t stop thinking of Ruby. Ruby is, for better and for worse, their destiny.

And now seriously – we had great time shooting it and we do hope you love it! Watch out for the “LipDub – The Making of” video (we’re working on it, it’s hilarious) and for some really great updates and events organized by Applicake. Subscribe to our newsletter at the end of the video  – and we’ll make sure to keep you posted.

You can see the lyrics here. Credits: LipDub idea by Dorota, script by Ela, Dorota, Agata and Socha, video by Wiciu.

Dear Everyone, please, meet Karolina – Web Apps Tester and Michał – Senior Ruby on Rails Coder.

As they both went through a very tough recruitment process, I KINDLY asked them to answer a few more questions.  What for? So that you could get to know them better!

1. Which cake ingredient are you?

Karolina: Which cake? Seriously, this is an important question! Probably yeast. I make everything grow..

Michał: I’m a raisin. You can have a cake without one, but it’s not the same cake anymore

2. Finish the sentence: „ I can’t imagine my life without…”

K: Just to be crystal clear – yes, this is gonna be the most tendentious answer ever! Here we go: music, sleep, my at-many-times-annoying boyfriend, my cellphone, eating muffins, dancing and designing.

M: Imagination. If not for imagination, would not even know what/who I am.

3. What makes you happy?

K: I hate those questions Ordinary things. I’m happy when buying new clothes (yes, pathethic and so girly!), meeting with friends, spending my time with my spouse (minus times when he’s annoying or he beats me in FIFA WorldCup), eating delicious stuff and knowing that people are happy with my designs…

M: Achievements, spending quality time with friends and popping bubble wraps!

4. Which color are you?

K: Few years ago I’d definitely say “black”… but now I have no idea. I don’t even know which one is my favorite. I can be RGB tho!

M: Today I feel like #4BD14E.

5. What is the last book you read?

K: It was “Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography” by James Craig. A good one.

M: Last book this week would be “Rework”. I liked it a lot. It’s nice to have all things 37signals talk about in one place.

6. If someone wrote a biography about you – what would be the title?

K: “The most boring story ever. Don’t read it unless you’re forced to”. Both inviting and provocative

M: “Super awesome rainbow unicorns with shotguns”. Therefore I’m glad no one
has written one yet.

7. If you could have superpowers, what would it be?

K: Flying, traveling in time or ultimate I-can’t-die ability!

M: Flying would be nice, preferably with cold resistance, and lowered oxygen need so that I could gain decent altitude.

8. What is your favorite food?

K: Oh, I love eating! *the-chewing-pie-sound* I’m crazy about sweets so I have to admit that “sweets” in general are my fav thing. To be specific, I could die for carrot cupcakes! And muffins – I actually bake them often. If it comes to more healthy food, I adore salmon, tuna pasta, cottage cheese with radish & more. Don’t ever tell me to go on a diet!

M: Sushi. I’m addicted to rice with rice vinegar and raw fish.

9. What is your favorite movie?

K: NO, NO, NO! I won’t tell you! I don’t have a slightest idea which of all movies I’ve seen in my life is my favorite. YOU WILL NEVER FIND OUT!

M: Luc Besson’s “Léon” – the only one to make me shed manly tears

10. If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who should play the main character?

K: Of course Scarlett Johansson. Who else could it be?

M: Sylvester Stallone. There would also be a lot of shooting, fast cars and “stuff”.

11. If you were a “House” (TV Series) character, which one would you be?

K: Definately “thirteen”. She’s extremely hot. If it comes to man I’m a combination of Chase and House. Actually I kind of adore House. He’s a master of irony and sarcasm, which I tend to use really often.

M: I’d be House probably. Although I’m only half as cynic as he is. I’m glad you haven’t asked about “Dexter” by the way.

12. How would you describe yourself in three words?

K: Crazy, open, visionary.

M: I would not

13. If you won the lottery, would you still work?

K: At first probably no… but after few months of boredom I would definitely get back to work. I’d dedicate myself to things I’m passionate about.

M: Sure. Probably less than today, but I don’t see a reason to stop doing what I love just because I can afford to.

Many people told me they thought EuRuKo 2010 logo was beautiful. In fact, they were asking if we had any free T-shirts to give away as they liked how the white ethnic pattern looked on a red T-shirt. That’s exactly why I thought I should share the design process we went through.

So what’s the story?

When we first announced the competition for EuRuKo 2010 logo, we only got few designs. We chose what we thought was the best one… but we still didn’t love it. Luckily, the designer – Aneta from Krakow-based web design agency Manto – agreed to work with me until everyone was happy with the final look & feel (huge THANKS Aneta!).

Designing a logo should be a quick one, right?

Wrong. Especially considering the fact that organizing EuRuKo was not really our full-time job and rather an after-work activity.

To be honest, the bar was set high:

EuRuKo 2009 logo was really beautiful and we liked the idea of mixing local inspirations with ‘good old’ ruby. Hopefully Berlin 2011 (congratulations guys!) team can continue this short-lived tradition!

Design decisions are always tough – they depend much on personal preferences and perspectives. We needed probably something like 3 months (!!) to produce EuRuKo vivid-yet-simple logo. That’s a long time when you think that the designer actually never got paid – the initial competition just like all EuRuKo-related tasks was considered ‘community effort’.

Someone should be in charge (get ready for long hours!)

Having on a team people with different tastes is great.. but it makes things complicated, too. And – excuse my personal observation – men & tech people are rather conservative about design . A good tip for next year’s team – choose one person among you who ‘feels’ design and let them work with the designer. In our case that was me. An important thing to realize – in the beginning it seems that you only need logo but you will really need tons of stuff: website design, sponsorship pdf design, brochures, tickets, posters and all print stuff you can think of (including badges and drink coupons!). Make sure you work with a patient designer!

Final decisions…

In the end you ‘just’ have to reach that point when everyone accepts the final logo in one or another variation. In a bigger team (3+ people) a consensus of ‘liking it‘ or ‘loving it at first sight’ is very unlikely.  People usually need time to get used to what they’ve just chosen and accept that they can’t mix ‘all the best things from every option’. That’s the paradox of choice, too. Before reaching that point of approval there will be moments when everyone just stares at all different logos… not feeling good about any of them. Or – hating every single one – because if you care about something (and boy did we care about EuRuKo!), things get emotional.  Such dead-end is a good moment to ask for outsider’s advice. We asked just a few people and it really helped us speed up the process. We personally decided not to do ‘community voting’ because we didn’t think it was a good idea. Hope this helps

Here’s how the logo evolved in a chronological order:

Finally:

In the end – we’re all happy with the end result Which one do you like the most? Comment here or @ us on Twitter: @euruko or @elamadej!

We’re super-excited that this year’s European Ruby Conference is going to take place in Kraków (May 29th – 30th). What’s EuRuKo? ‘EuRuKo is an annual conference about the Ruby language with an informal atmosphere and lots of opportunities to listen, to talk, to hack and to have fun’. It surely is going to be an awesome event -  280 Rubyists, great agenda and afterparties… No wonder Applicake is among the event sponsors and the entire team is showing up. We’ll be wearing Applicake T-shirts so finding us should be relatively easy. To learn more about EuRuKo, follow @euruko Twitter feed.